People Who Drive Also Ride

Since Dow Constantine’s proposal to add a modest car tab fee to pay for buses is freaking some folks out (see, for example the comments to the linked article), I’m going to state the obvious: Many of the people (and many families) who own a car also use the bus system. We’ll hear a lot of the war on cars bullshit as this issue progresses.

But, there is no war on cars. Me riding the bus instead of taking my car makes the road a little less crowded than it would otherwise be. I don’t take the bus to unclog the roads, I take them because they’re convenient. Having a bus system helps me and everyone else on the road.

When I was growing up in the fairly close in suburbs there was a great freedom to be able to get on the bus. It meant I could go into the city any time I wanted. And it meant I was out of my parents’ hair for a few hours. While the 307 wasn’t the most convenient route (there was a long layover at the Northgate transit station, and it wasn’t particularly direct) it got me into the city long before I started driving, and my parents didn’t have to act as taxi drivers.

Also, plenty of people who drive most of the time take the bus occasionally, and it’s a nice thing to have. The last time my dad, who drives regularly, and I went to the Mariners’ game, he took the bus in. Saved the hassle of finding parking and fighting the rush hour traffic downtown.

The point of these examples isn’t that they’re comprehensive data, and it isn’t even to support the plan necessarily (I haven’t studied it enough, but like it in theory). The point is that the divide between “drivers” and “bus riders” is pretty artificial.

I ride and drive. I’d pay a couple hundred a year to get better bus service.

The demagogues that are whining about the war on cars might want to recall that in the last year the bus fares had a huge increase, around $.60 at peak times. For someone who goes to work on a bus this amounts to probably five times what the drivers are being charged.

There is absolutely a war on cars by some people in the McGinn administration and some Seattle environmentalists. But there are plenty of reasons for supporting a better public transit system that have nothing to do with their jihadist approach.

In the early 1900’s about 1915 the jitneys started to become popular and competed with the streetcars for business. As a result the streetcar corporations got organized and had laws passed that outlawed the jitneys. By about 1925 most cities nationwide had outlawed jitneys.

Btw Seattle had 518 jitneys transporting 49,000 passengers daily in Feb. of 1915 according to an old article from the Journal of Law and Economics I have around somewhere.

In the post WWII period inflation took a toll on the income of the local bus companies and the municipalities that oversaw them in most cases refused to allow them to increase their fares, which made it impossible for them to operate successfully. Then in the 1960’s the Feds put up the money so that local governments could buy the remainder out. Lots of political games going on at that time.

Of course there is a war on cars, and citing a bike blog to argue that there isn’t sinks to the Sarah Palin intellectual level.

But recognizing that there is a war on cars is not inconsistent with supporting the $20 car tab tax to fund bus service. After all, the more people who ride the buses, the fewer the cars there are on the road, and the easier it is for drivers to get around.

I don’t know if there’s a war on cars, but it certainly appears that a very large segment of drivers behave like they’re at war with each other every time they get behind the wheel. If your objective is to simply get from Point A to Point B in one piece, it’s a real pain the the tush to be surrounded by thousands of idiots who see their daily commute as an opportunity for ego masturbation.

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